It seems that the relations between Washington and Ankara have only been poor in recent times.
There are a lot of unresolved issues and disputes, which intermittently cause crises, between the two countries.
The reason for the last negative turn of events was the arrest of Andrew Brunson, an evangelical Presbyterian pastor who worked in Turkey’s Aegean region. In fact, the pastor was arrested in October 2016, as part of an investigation into the coup attempt that took place in July 2016. The Turkish authorities accuse the pastor of having links with the Gulen Movement, which was declared a terrorist organization in Turkey. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has dedicated several tweets to Brunson, in which he expressed confidence in his innocence and called for his immediate release.
Some observers believe that the Turkish side would like to swap the pastor for the Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, who has been living for many years in exile in the US. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, commenting on the situation around Andrew Brunson, mentioned the Turkish preacher accused of orchestrating an attempted military coup in Turkey and lamented that the US refused to extradite him to Turkey.
In late July, Brunson was moved to house arrest, due to health problems.
Despite the request of the American side, Turkey refused to release the pastor eventually. Although there had been cases of detention of French and German citizens on similar charges, they were released after the intervention of their countries.Obviously, Trump, known for his impulsiveness, was not pleased with this approach of the Turkish authorities. He repeatedly threatened to impose sanctions. Perhaps even Trump imposing sanctions on Turkey expects to receive an apology from the Turkish leader, as in the case with Putin after the Turkish fighters shot down a Russian military plane that violated Turkish airspace. Finally, at the beginning of this month, the US Treasury Department adopted personal sanctions against the two Turkish ministers, it was an extraordinary measure, not every day the US imposes sanctions against members of the government of one of the NATO countries.
This was followed by a sharp increase in duties on imports of Turkish steel and aluminum, later, on August 10.
This step was a severe blow for the Turkish economy and the Turkish national currency which were far from their glory days. The Turkish lira went into free fall. The Turkish government is trying to stabilize the lira, but Erdogan’s public speeches are increasingly contributing to the depreciation of the lira.
Following these events, the Turkish police put in place additional security measures around the house of Andrew Brunson in Izmir.
Some people think it is justified that Erdogan uses this situation to rally the divided Turkish society around him. The Turkish society still has a memory of how the Western powers used Christian missionaries to interfere in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire. I do not think that the case of Andrew Brunson has any correlation with what happened in the times of the Ottoman Empire, but propaganda skillfully completes the missing parts of stories …
Immediately after the escalation of the crisis, President Erdogan published an article in the NYT.This shows that he realizes the importance of the US, American public opinion and is ready for dialogue. I would advise him to write his column in the NYT on a regular basis, so the American audience will have the opportunity to learn first-hand about Turkey’s position. It should also be noted that Erdogan’s government has a severe problem in building communications with the American political establishment. After Erdogan came to power, the few Turkish lobby groups that were in the US suspended their activities, Erdogan’s government was unable to build its lobbying activities in the US, unlike, for example, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel or even China. The lack of such activities widened the gap between Ankara and Washington.
As for the economy, it would be wrong to say that the US was responsible for all the economic problems in Turkey, as announced by the White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett live on MSNBC. Hassett said President Donald Trump’s decision to double tariffs on Turkish steel was “a tiny, tiny fraction” of Turkey’s gross domestic product, “so for the currency to drop 40 percent is a sign that there are a lot of economic fundamentals that are out of whack in that country.” He also added a remark on the political processes in Turkey and their impact on the economy. “When a country loses its connection to liberal democracy then you don’t really know what’s going to happen next to the economy and I think there is a lot of uncertainty,” Hassett said. The Turkish economy has been going through really tough times for the last 5-6 years. Large foreign investors are skeptical about Turkey’s investment opportunities; this is due to the following factors:
* Economic and political instability in the country.
* Strong outflow of capital and a drop in the purchasing power of citizens.
* Confrontation of the government with disagreeable businesspersons and use of courts for their prosecution and confiscation of assets.
* Complete loss of independence of Turkish courts and falling under the control of the executive power.
* Permanent Islamization of the country and a gradual moving away from the secular state.
For a long time, Erdogan’s government was on good terms with the Gulen Movement, the business empire controlled by this religious sect has grown considerably, members of the sect managed to infiltrate the courts and the prosecutor’s office. The Gulen Movement used these opportunities not only against Kemalist politicians and public figures but also against businesspersons whom they disapproved. When Erdogan started destroying the business empire of the Gulen Movement, this certainly could not but affect the Turkish economy.
Moreover, many wealthy people in Turkey have recently sold and are selling their property in the country and move to other countries, and these contribute to the outflow of capital from the country. Some local businessmen who are close to the authorities acquire these assets and attract foreign loans in dollars and euros for this, these transactions, along with the current debts of Turkish corporations, increase the pressure on the foreign exchange market. The growing Turkish foreign debt and its servicing become an expensive pleasure every year.
It is difficult to predict how this crisis will develop and whether it will lead to greater problems for both countries. Especially since the reins are held by impulsive leaders in both countries.
However, it is worth noting that the problems in the relations between the two countries should not be linked to Trump, he inherited these problems from the previous administration. Besides, as early as 2003, some serious disagreements emerged between Turkey and the US, when Turkey refused to participate in the Iraq campaign and refused to let US troops through its territory. In the short term, Turkey was able to show itself as an “independent player” in the long term, it was a blow to Turkey’s interests in Iraq, particularly, in Northern Iraq.
The parties have serious complaints against each other. I will try to touch upon these issues briefly.
Syria – PYD / YPG
Some politicians in Washington believe that only the US can have “national interests”, other countries cannot have any. This approach primarily harms the US itself and plays into the hands of Iran, Russia and, to some extent, China.
Turkey accuses US-backed Kurdish paramilitary groups PYD / YPG of being affiliated with PKK. The US spent vast amounts of money on training, preparing, arming and supporting the Kurdish armed groups in the north of Syria. Millions of dollars of American taxpayers were spent on supporting armed groups that fight the US ally in the region and are affiliated with the PKK terrorist organization that the US itself put on the terrorist list in 1997.It is worth noting that this process did not begin under the current administration but under the Obama administration. This can be considered as one of a series of mistakes by the Obama administration in the Middle East, which later led to an increase in the influence of Russia and Iran in this region.
The fact that Germany, which supported the Kurdish groups, was late and could not take part in the division of spheres of influence in the region is understandable, but the US is a world superpower and has an ally in the region closely linked to Washington in military terms. For the long-term interests of the US in the region, it is merely disadvantageous to exchange the NATO country with the second largest army after the US for the paramilitary Kurdish groups affiliated with terrorists.
Turkey’s purchase of Russian-made S-400 systems and problems with the F-35
Turkey as a broad enough country in a complex region continually needs to update and improve its air defense. Turkey’s attempt to buy Russian S-400 missile defense systems turned into a scandal. The US is unhappy that a NATO country is buying Russian weapons. However, this deal has an interesting background. Before considering the purchase of S-400 missile defense systems as an option, Turkey had long tried to buy similar weapons from NATO allies, but no one agreed to sell…As the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in his interview, Turkey had been trying to buy similar weapons from the US for almost ten years, but the US refused Turkey.
It is strange that another NATO member Greece has Russian weapons, particularly, the S-300 missile defense system. However, this does not cause a sharp discontent of NATO or the US. If the US believes that the purchase of S-400 missile defense systems is a problem, then Turkey is not to blame. The consistent disregard by Turkey’s allies for its need for such weapons pushed Turkey to look for an alternative.After the deal between Russia and Turkey was concluded, the US agreed to discuss the sale of Patriots to Turkey, but in exchange asked Ankara to cancel the S-400 deal. The Turkish side stated that they did not exclude the purchase of the Patriot defense systems, but they would not cancel the deal with Russia.
On August 13, the US President Donald Trump signed into law a defense policy bill that will hold up the transfer to Turkey of 100 F-35 fighter jets. Despite the fact that Turkey had paid for them. It seems that this step will further aggravate the crisis between the countries and will further push Turkey towards Russia and China.
Assistance to Iran in evading US sanctions
This, probably, is one of the most severe claims of Washington against Ankara. According to the American side, this is a whole chain of “backdoors” created by large Turkish banks in order to bypass the financial sanctions imposed on Iran.
The essence of the claim is that Turkish state banks took an active part in laundering Iranian money received from oil trade and sending cash and gold to Iran. The entire scheme was coordinated by an Iranian businessman of Azerbaijani descent, Reza Zarrab, who was married to a well-known Turkish singer.Zarrab is now appearing as a prosecution witness and claims that the current president of Turkey was aware of this scheme. This is quite a serious charge. Zarrab also claims that he paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to the Turkish minister and other high-ranking officials for their help. It is suggested that through the scheme organized by Zarrab a couple of Turkish banks passed 100 billion dollars from Iran. It is strange that there was a loophole in the sanctions system for a while and, although the Obama administration knew about it, they were reluctant to close this secret passage. The investigation into this case is still ongoing in the US. In May 2018, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a deputy general manager of “Halk Bank” who was involved in this scheme, was sentenced by an American court to 32 months of imprisonment.
This episode also exacerbates the relations between the US and Turkey as allies.
Refusal to purchase Iranian energy resources and new sanctions against Iran
After the US imposed new sanctions on Iran and asked the countries importing Iranian oil and gas to refuse these purchases, the Turkish authorities said they would not follow these sanctions and would not stop importing Iranian oil and gas. We were witnessing a repetition of the events of 2003 when Turkey refused to become a part of the coalition against Iraq. Now Ankara is stepping on the same rake. Defending Iran, Turkey deprives itself of the right to vote in the future, when the winners will share the “Iranian inheritance.” Iran has never been an ally or even a good neighbor of Turkey, Iranian propaganda has actively opposed Turkey, Iran has almost never helped Turkey to fight PKK terrorists, Iran and Turkey found themselves on opposite sides of the barricade in Syria. Now Turkey has a unique chance to use the issue of sanctions against Iran to solve problems with the US and to exert pressure on Iran to limit its destructive activity in the region.
In the coming months, we will learn how the Turkish-American relations will move forward. I would like to believe that both sides will have the wisdom and patience to step back a little and try to agree. So far, the actions of both sides have played into the hands of exclusively Iran and Russia, putting the stability of the whole region at risk.
